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According to Urling, GCCI has always advocated that parliamentarians on both sides of the political divide respect the process.
The GCCI president reminded that the Speaker of the National Assembly, Raphael Trotman, had ruled on the matter of whether Minister of Home Affairs Clement Rohee could speak in the House or not.
Trotman, in addressing the House prior to allowing the minister to present the Bill for debate, had said that whether he (Trotman) comes from the government or opposition sides of the House he has “to do what is right.”
He said that it would have been perverse to continue not allowing the minister to speak or contribute to the business of the House.
The GCCI president said that this ruling by Trotman was further complemented by a pronouncement from the judiciary on the matter of the home affairs minister’s role and ability to speak in the House.
According to Urling, the recent decision taken by the combined opposition will not hurt Minister of Home Affairs Clement Rohee or the Parliament, but rather the country as a whole.
In the meantime, Urling reminded that in its recent engagement of the administration on the budgetary process for 2013, one of the things it had advanced as an area requiring urgent attention was that of security, especially in the interior regions.
On Thursday last, the combined opposition, without fielding a speaker to the debate on whether to criminalise the trafficking of firearms as well as the importation of its components, defeated the Bill piloted by Rohee.
UNFORTUNATE DEVELOPMENT
In lamenting what he called the “unfortunate development,” Urling said that voting in the National Assembly should be done on the basis of the content of what is proposed and not simply against an individual.
He asserted that matters of crime and the trafficking of firearms are not simply about Minister Rohee, or government, or the People’s Progressive Party.
“The country as a whole suffers when such political postures are adopted,” Urling maintained.
Following the defeat of the Bill in the House on Thursday last, Rohee met with members of the media and condemned the negative vote by the opposition parties, saying that with the law in place, the security forces would have been better equipped to prosecute such offences.
He called the move “parliamentary assassination” on the part of the opposition to defeat the Bill simply because it was being piloted by him.
He noted that parliamentary assassination has begun and observed that the attacks have nothing to do with him.
Rather, “I am being used by the opposition as a means of getting to the government.”
This, he said, was glaring when the Leader of the Parliamentary Opposition, Brigadier (rtd) David Granger, admitted, following the parliamentary fallout, that the move to block the Firearms (Amendment) Bill was meant to send a message to the executive.
Had the legislation been passed and assented into law, it would have made the security forces stronger in their efforts as they would then have the “legal backing to do what they have to do to stop the firearms from coming in…we have gaps in our law and we are now seeking to bridge those gaps, and lo and behold, it was shot down by the opposition.”
He said that his view of the opposition action is that “Rohee’s head is much more valuable than the protection of our national sovereignty.”
Minister Rohee affirmed that the public will be the judge, and he referred to the fact that the opposition had failed in the courts and parliament to seek to have him gagged, and further, the Commission of Inquiry into the Linden killings had also exonerated him.
“I am confident that they will fail in this one, that is preventing the Minister of Home Affairs from presenting Bills…the Bill is not about Rohee, but about the national interest.”
